* You can divide the role any way necessary matching your organizational needs.

* You can divide the role any way necessary matching your organizational needs.

* BSA encourages the checking account have two, three or more authorized signers.

* BSA encourages the checking account have two, three or more authorized signers.

-

* BSA encourages two or more signers for every check. This can add challenges and work.

+

* BSA encourages (NOT REQUIRED) two or more signers for every check. This can add challenges and work.

=== Financial Secretary ===

=== Financial Secretary ===

Revision as of 17:34, March 1, 2012

The following are ideas and suggestions collected from many different sources meant to help manage the finances of scouting units. Pick and choose the below ideas and suggestions that best match you and your scouting unit.

Background

Every year, thousands of non-profit organizations lose money thru disorganized finances, borrowing by volunteers and/or just simple embezzlement and theft. Watch the newspapers for a few months. You will start seeing the incidents. Protect your organization by adopting some of the below suggestions.

Why does this happen? It's actually easy to understand. Non-profits exist because of good intentions and are run by very well meaning volunteers. Those volunteers are focused on fulfilling a need and not on basic business infrastructure. A natural result is that caution is lowered allowing problems and incidents to occur.

Many volunteers will not see the importance of financial discipline because it's just a scout group. It's not obvious to most volunteers that every year a 40 person Cub Scout pack can easily have $20,000 "passing thru" their checking account between dues, fundraisers, camp fees and such. Larger units can easily have $50,000 or more going thru their checking account. Groups with high adventures, monthly camping and summer camps can have even more passing thru checking.

Consider a 40 Cub Scout pack with $50 annual dues. Selling both popcorn and wreath fundraisers (averaging $300 per scout ... some higher ... some lower). 50% signing up for one winter event at $30 per person (scout and parent). 50% camping each summer at resident camps ($100 per person). That's $2000 in dues. $12,000 gross in fundraising. $1200 in winter event fees. $4000 in summer camp fees. Or a total of $19,200.

Keep up to date - Units repeatedly get in trouble when the treasurer falls weeks or months behind in their record keeping.

Reimburse quickly - You will quickly lose volunteers if you don't reimburse them for weeks or months.

Be supportive - We're all volunteers. Though the treasurer can be one of the hardest jobs in a unit, every volunteer job is significantly harder than doing nothing. Help each other get things done and succeed.

Don't burn your volunteers - If they incur a "reasonable" expense, get them reimbursed in a timely way. If it's not reasonable, you have a different issue.

The Bank

Example bank statement with check images.

Don't hesitate to switch banks. It's cheaper to switch to the right bank than to stay in a less than perfect match.

Avoid fees. Some banks have community service checking accounts that do NOT require a minimum balance, do NOT charge a monthly fee and do NOT charge other fees such as fees for too many checks being deposited (fundraisers).

Ask if the online PDF bank statements will include images of the checks written against the account. This allows you to read the name on the check and the "comments" field. Most banks allow access to check images one-by-one when on-line. Some have them printed on mailed paper statements. But it is extremely useful to have the images on the on-line bank statements themselves because you can save them to PDF files and email to your co-leaders. You may want to change banks to get this capability as it promotes open easy communication and traceability.

Have at least two registered signers for the checking account. Three or more signers is preferred.

The Person

The right person

Not everyone will be a good treasurer. You don't need to be a CPA or a math teacher. But the treasurer must be organized and be willing to regularly spend time at home balancing the books when everyone else is taking a break from scouting.

If the treasurer falls behind, fix the situation. If it's a one time life or family situation, your unit will survive. If it's a recurring problem, find someone else to be treasurer.

Don't be afraid to to give up the job if you are the treasurer or to suggest someone else pick it up.

Separation of Responsibilities

Even if the family has the best of reputations and single handedly started the scout group, split the responsibilities with multiple families. It's to protect both the interests of the unit and the reputation of the family.

Don't have the unit leader and treasurer be the same person.

Don't have the unit leader and treasurer be husband / wife.

Don't have family members approve expenses or co-sign their own reimbursement check.

Multiple people

BSA has no strict rules for the treasurer's position. Plus, the position can take significant work and be one of the key positions in any unit.

You can ask the treasurer of the Chartered Organization to be your treasurer.

You can divide the role any way necessary matching your organizational needs.

BSA encourages the checking account have two, three or more authorized signers.

BSA encourages (NOT REQUIRED) two or more signers for every check. This can add challenges and work.

Financial Secretary

Some organizations split the treasurer role into two positions: Treasurer and Financial Secretary.

If your unit does have Individual Youth Accounts, managing them is one of the most important jobs and one of the most questioned. Parents will review these statements in detail.

Have the information readily available

Keep the information up to date

Use a consistent format for communicating

Hand them out regularly. At minimum, consider handing them out at each Court of Honor.

Transactions

Cash

Strongly prefer "checks" to "cash" - Of course never turn away someone who is ready to pay in cash. Just prefer checks written to your scouting unit. Handling cash is the number one place where money is confused, lost or stolen. A disorganized person can easily confuse cash with their own money. A stressed person can easily borrow cash. Cash is an issue because cash can't be tracked. Checks require deposit and leave a trail.

Track cash - As money is handed to you, record the cash in a ledger while the person is still standing with you. Give the person a receipt for the cash.

Don't keep petty cash on-hand - Deposit everything. It's hard to track and rarely needed. Most scouting volunteers will float minor expenses for a few days. A better solution is to always reimburse volunteers ASAP. Reimburse the same day if possible!

Checks

All incoming checks should be written to your scouting unit. Never have incoming checks written directly to the volunteers.

With every check, incoming or outgoing, write in the comments section a brief description of the purpose of the check. This is useful when reconciling records as most banks allow retrieving the image of the check.

Deposit checks continually.

The treasurer should never sign checks payable to anyone in their own family. Have another authorized, non-family member sign the check.

BSA recommends two signatures on every check.

Though a very good recommendation, many units don't do this as it can slow reimbursements and make the treasurer's job harder.

If your unit doesn't do this, make sure your unit has good financial "transparency" (i.e. multiple people see the bank statements and other documents) and "traceability" (i.e. is there evidence on why money was spent and where incoming money went)

Deposits

Example bank deposit done in Excel

Create a detailed deposit record for reconciling records later. Record the date received, amount, scout, purpose and name on check if different than the scout family, very important for fundraisers.

Collect money continually - Don't wait weeks or month for an activity, a camp or a fundraiser to be done. Ideally, at every troop and committee meeting, the treasurer should ask the scoutmaster, camping chair, fundraising chair and all others ... "Got any checks for me?"

Deposit money often - A repeated problem in many units is holding checks for months and months. This affects families that don't have good control of their own finances. This makes it difficult to know the unit finances.

Receipts

Keep receipts organized - One way is to get a three ring binder with school paper. Tape them sequentially in as they arrive. Three hole punch large receipts.

Write on each receipt the date it was paid, the name of the person being reimbursed, the check number used to pay it.

Make them write something down and sign it if there is no receipt. For example, firewood purchased at a state park using an "honor box".

Methodology

Example event summary for a shooting sports camp out.

Event based accounting - Create an event summary for each event including camps, activities, bank deposits, courts of honor, equipment purchases and such. Review and finalize each summary with the troop committee. Once finalized, update scout accounts with the transactions as documented. Scout accounts could be documented in Excel or Quicken (not QuickBooks).

For camps and activities, reflect who, what, where and when. List scouts being billed and expenses for that event.